Ben Kline seems perfectly placed to loosen a too-tight football huddle with the game depending on a defensive stop.

The right guy to put things in perspective after a loss.

The one to help keep things upbeat enough after crippling NCAA sanctions?

Dallastown's Kline is more than just another linebacker at Linebacker U.

Some call him a comedian, say he's off-center and know he's not afraid to speak his mind, especially when there's a punch line to be had.

He's the one most likely to crack up his teammates, which sometimes is as important as anything else.

"A very unique sense of humor. Some of the one-liners he comes up with ..." said his father, Rick Kline. "But he always makes you feel at ease."

"He could be ... interesting," Dallastown football coach Kevin Myers said, measuring his words with a laugh.

Interesting? Kline would guzzle a can of Mountain Dew moments before taking the court in varsity basketball games -- even a state playoff game.

"You need a little caffeine," he said recently, a smile widening as he explained. "Those basketball games can get a little boring at times."

He'll talk about a scar on his chin from a childhood boomerang accident.

But he probably made his biggest splash this summer by taking an interpretive dance class and then putting the video of it on YouTube.

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It was Kline and five co-eds in a night class performing somewhat elegant moves to Adele's "Rolling in the Deep."

Not what you expected from a 235-pound linebacker?

"I learned a lot about dance, and it's not as easy as it looks," he said. "It's much more complicated than you think it would be.

"You stretch and stuff, so I think it helped me out (in football)."

And he loved teammates seeing him in action on YouTube.

"I figure that you put in all the time, so you might as well get some reward and make it public."

Which brought us to Penn State's media day a couple of weeks ago. While he balked at showing his moves on the Beaver Stadium grass ("This isn't really the venue, you know?"), he did offer something else.

"I teach," he said to me. "And you dance."

So he gave out some slowed-down instruction on his moves and we had some laughs and filmed a short video of it.

Ben being Ben.

"He's a real witty guy. He's real smart, I had a couple of classes with him," said fellow linebacker Glenn Carson. "You need guys who are humorous because everything's so strenuous and so serious all the time."

* * *

And so it turns out that Twitter is the perfect outlet for his creativity and off-beat humor.

He tweeted this gem recently: "Starting the long road back to health after the bruised testicle I suffered during the team paintball skirmish yesterday #prayersplease."

But, again, this is only part of him.

He is a promising player and he takes his business school classes seriously.

"Ben is mature beyond his years," Myers said. "He really liked to have fun and did it in the right way, but he also knew when's the time to stop."

It's not surprising, then, that the redshirt freshman is in line for serious playing time this fall and that he's caught the eye of head coach Bill O'Brien in camp.

Performing well on the field and in the classroom doesn't mean you can't have fun, too, though.

For that, we go back to his Twitter account from last week:

"I'm gonna make sure y'all never forget about me. Your great grand kids are gonna say 'Wow, wasn't that a bizarre individual?"

Frank Bodani is a sports reporter for the Daily Record/Sunday News. Reach him at 771-2104, fbodani@ydr.com or @YDRPennState on Twitter.

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